|
Deb & Walt bicycle in Nova Scotia! Starting in Portland Maine, and then continuing through Newfoundland and back! Page 3: Up the East Coast then across the island! |
|
| Morning
in Dartmouth. The next few days should show much less civilization
than the last few. But first, we have to get out of the city.
Similar to Alaska, Nova Scotia has about half its entire population in
one city. In Nova Scotia's case that is Halifax/Dartmouth.
Older cities are usually more difficult to navigate than newer ones, and Dartmouth was no exception. |
 |
 |
There
wasn't really much physical distance to get out of town, but the streets
were narrow, and the maps we had were not always adequate. Roads
that appeared to go through on the map changed names, and sometimes
became one way streets headed in the wrong direction.
The bridge in the picture goes over the harbor to Halifax. We needed to go under the bridge and then go to the left... somewhere... |
| I
thought I had it figured out, but Deb avoided any possible dishonor for me
by asking for directions. We found the street we needed to head
out of town, and along the way we passed this park that had what appeared
to be a giant 'war canoe' being paddled about..
It took longer than hoped to get out of town. On a bicycle, time lost is hard to recover, and it was going to be a long day anyway. |
|
 |
Our
destination for the day was Sheet Harbour, about 80 miles from our
start. There were no other options as near as we could tell.
The many small places named on the map were mere hamlets, and appeared
to have no rooms available. The weather was deteriorating, and we
were faced with our first headwinds so far.
I just put my head down and cranked hard. It was quite cool now, and I must have burned a million calories trying to heat up the atmosphere. Being about half my width, Deb slid in behind me and drafted. By the time we ate lunch we had cranked out quite a few miles. I was paying the price for my 'wheel dog' mentality, but some Haddock and chips, coffee and Coke, brought me back to life. I must have been in pretty good shape, since I recovered so well. |
| But
in reality all that morning work was a debt unpaid. Payback
happened shortly before we arrived at Sheet Harbour...
This classic shot shows the reality of bicycle touring. Off the bike, and onto the bed. I haven't even bothered to remove my cycling sandals... With difficult I roused myself to go eat. The room was cold, and I had turned up the heat a little, but nothing was happening. When we went to dinner, Deb turned it WAY up. The heat happened while we were eating, and we returned to an eighty degree room. Then it didn't want to un-happen. But I was to worn out to care, I managed to sleep anyway..
|
|
|
The next morning the weather really went to hell on us. It was wet cold and rainy. We ate a snack at this little place and put on our serious raingear. The oriental woman who was here spoke almost no English at all. She seemed puzzled when we bought a bunch of snacks and then ate them right in front of her at the cash register... |
| Deb spotted a 'Kayak on a stick' and had to get a photo. |  |
 |
The
all important 'pit zips' keep the inside from getting wetter than the
outside, but they are harder than hell to operate, especially with
gloves. The great ongoing challenge is to maintain the body's
temperature at the correct spot so that you don't get cold, and don't
sweat too much.
Someday all these openings and closures will be handled electronically. Then we will laugh about the 'old days' when you had to fuss with analog, mechanical zippers while riding a bicycle. |
| Deb
really like the name Ecum Secum. But then we had about five miles
of road work, where the pavement was gone and we had to bounce over and
between a million alarmingly large rocks. Then she told me,
"I don't like Ecum Secum so much any more."
Regardless, I got this picture when that legendary Deb smile was still fully functional, and so shall Ecum Secum always be remembered. |
 |
 |
The rain had pretty much stopped by noon, but this close to the sea, the fog lingered. Occasionally we would get a glimpse inland and we could see that the fog was only right on the coast. But that is where the road ran, and we were in the damp all day. |
| Fishing and lobsters are what this section of the coast is all about. Here we pass a bunch of lobster traps at a shack along the road. We spent the night at Sherbrooke, intending in the morning to re-cross the island to the north . |  |
 |
And
a beautiful morning it was! This far out of town traffic died off
to nearly nothing, especially, perhaps, because this was Sunday morning.
Away from the coast Nova Scotia is nearly uninhabited, and the road was beautiful. |
| All of which allowed us to ride on the wrong side of the road to get some nice pictures. |  |
 |
The road goes up the Saint Mary's River for about 15 miles. For the most part the climb was not steep, but it was steep enough for the river to be in continuous, but small, rapids. |
| It
got steeper when we left the river to climb the divide. The road
got a little more primitive. It was very warm again too.
We were running short of fluids as well. It was Sunday morning, and as we left Sherbrooke we had been unable to get refilled with Gatorade as we usually did. We got a few fruit juices at a restaurant, but as noon approached, we were getting dry. Deb had really 'browned up' by now... Click picture to see how dark her shoulder is! |
 |
 |
At
last! The continental divide... (our should I say Peninsular
divide??)
Horseflies were buzzing around, occasionally taking a bite out of my back. Deb had her hair in seven or eight long braids that were continually sweeping around her shoulders, so she never had a problem! |
| Here,
in the middle of nowhere, we found a 'Picnic Park' that had a
well. I drank lustily, but Deb was skeptical.
Fearing the dreaded, 'Beaver Fever', she just filled her reserve bottle. I figured a well would be pretty doggone safe, but frankly, I was thirsty to the point that I really didn't care if I got sick tomorrow. |
|
|
Then the road crosses a plateau. It was noticeably drier up here, and the road was little used. The road stayed up high until we neared the northern coast then we dropped down onto the main road, The Trans-Continental Highway (TCH) |
| This was a much busier road, and quite a contrast to where we just had been. The shoulder was supposed to be one meter in width, and sometimes was a little more, but usually was somewhat less. No matter, it was wide enough, the pavement was smooth, and the wind was at our backs. We flew along at about 20mph for well over an hour as we approached our destination of Port Hawksberry on the island of Cape Breton. | 
|
|
Cape Breton island is now connected to the mainland of Nova Scotia by this causeway. That's Cape Breton ahead of Deb. The causeway was narrow, and there was a fair amount of traffic. It was a little scary taking the camera out and shooting these pictures on the fly. |
| Now we are on the middle of the causeway. At the far end we crossed a drawbridge that rotates instead of raises to let ships through. Off to the right you can see the beginnings of Port Hawksberry where we would spend the night. | 
|
|
Home sweet home in Port Hawksberry. It had been another eighty mile day, but they were seeming routine by now. For a change, we had not had to burn a lot of calories maintaining our body heat, and we had strong tailwinds for the last part of the day. We arrived quite fresh and would have been ready to play a few chuckers of polo, had the opportunity arose. |